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Collection Centre

In 2016, the EYE collection got a new home: the new EYE Collection Centre. The building is situated on the Asterweg in Amsterdam Noord.

The Collection Centre is the crown in EYE’s relocation to Amsterdam Noord. For decades the collection has been spread out across a number of locations in Amsterdam and beyond, which means that the collection specialists and archivists have never been centrally located. Until now, that is.

a collection workshop for professionals

The Collection Centre is a building for conservation, restoration and research. The new centre has a small cinema where new restorations can be viewed and discussed, and where press presentations can be held. In other words, EYE now has a single location for everyone who is professionally involved with the collection, at a short walk's distance from EYE’s museum on the north bank of the IJ.

address collection centre

Asterweg 261031 HP Amsterdam

download route (Dutch)

the collection also underwent a move

The main challenge was not building a home for these various professional activities, but rather moving the collections that these professionals work with. All in all, 40,000 films (contained in more than 200,000 film cans) and more than 500 meters of paper archives were moved.

Parts of the collection were being moved in from different locations, because until now there has never been one building that had the space or the conditions to house all of the materials.

freezing or refrigerating

The preservation of the collection begins with storing the materials under the proper conditions, which is why the depots are equipped with advanced climate systems. Part of the film collection will even be frozen in so-called sub-zero depots. These are mainly for colour negatives and masters, 70mm colour copies, and some black and white negatives. Slightly less vulnerable films will be stored in a refrigerated storage facility with controlled humidity. The paper records will also be stored under conditions where the humidity and temperature are kept constant.

Not all of the films made the move. Nitrate films in particular can be flammable, and therefore will stay where they are: in special bunkers with climate control, outside of inhabited areas.